Shattered Glass
by Ukaisha
Summary: He arrives on his doorstep with little to say. And yet, as broken as he is, he wants to say so much. (Style, oneshot)


A/N: I couldn't leave this idea alone after the Ass Burgers episode. A little angst was exactly what this couple needed; too much deredere, not enough tsuntsun. I do love my angst.  
Yes, they are the age they were in the show. Maybe like a year older to indicate some time passing. No teenage angst here, and no dirty bits.  
There is, however, a fair amount of foul language. These boys are from South Park, after all.

The story in question is based off of "Fix You" by Coldplay, a song you can listen to here: you tube / watch?v= pY9b6jgbNyc by removing spaces.  
I realize this song has probably been a bit overused in regards to plot lines like this, but to me it's the one most befitting, and not only did it make me start thinking about writing this to begin with, it's the song I listened to the most when writing this.  
Feel free to begin playing the song when it suddenly makes an appearance. It really completes the story.  
I hope to receive critical feedback; it has been a few years since I've attempted to write seriously and I'd like to know how it's going.  
Thank you.

* * *

Stan knocked on the door. This was his fourth attempt(at his third house) at knocking on the door he WANTED to knock on, and he was starting to think he would never find the right one. He woozily leaned against the frame, holding on for dear life to both the smooth wood and his antagonized stomach. Still standing relatively straight, he still felt like he was about to fall over into the snow, and the snow seemed a long way down. There was no telling just how far he would fall before he actually hit the ground after the snow, and who know if he would ever even hit the ground?  
"Is Kyle home?" he tried to say, but his tongue kept getting all in the way and ruining it. It came out like a bunch of alien syllables. He tried saying it again, "Is Kyle home?" He wondered how he would ever get past Mrs. Broflovski in this state. He wondered if he should just leave. He wondered what he was still doing there; it was obvious no one was coming to answer the door, and besides, he was sure he wouldn't be wanted here regardless.  
He tried to turn around so he could go in search of the right house, (or maybe go home; he hadn't decided yet) but when he let go of the door frame, he lost his balance and had to quickly grip it again. The stairs leading to the door were wriggling underneath him like a bed of snakes, and he let go of his groaning, wailing stomach to better situate himself. It was no use; he finally bent over the side and vomited profusely, spraying the snow with the acidic contents of a stomach that was quite happy to be rid of it.

A moment later, he heard someone say his name. It sounded far away, and he didn't think that whoever had said it was nearby; he wasn't entirely sure that anyone had said his name in the first place. Nonetheless, he asked, "Is Kyle home?" and this time he was pretty sure he said it right. Then he felt himself falling over, and in the middle of the fall he passed out, falling dangerously close to the vomit-stained snow below, and there he laid; dead to the world.

In the doorway, Kyle watched his best friend fall listlessly to the ground and cease to move anymore. He had thought he'd vaguely heard a knock at the door while doing his homework in the kitchen, though it had sounded more like an odd, arrhythmic pounding noise. With his father bothering with paperwork and his mother fussing with Ike, he had taken it upon himself to investigate the noise. He listened at the door, certain that he'd been mistaken and there had been no knock at all, but then he heard someone say, "Where's Kyle? Is home Kyle?"  
Frowning, he had opened the door just in time to see Stan's impressive puking display, and it startled him enough to yell, "Holy shit, Stan!" He heard Stan mumble something unintelligible in response, and then he fell to the ground. His first thought had been hysteria and concern: Stan looked absolutely awful. Had he just been beat up? Was he sick? Did he need to go to the hospital?  
A few more moments of quiet observation revealed the true answer. Stan was drunk again.  
Stan groaned, as though to confirm his assessment, and the hysteria died down to a mixture of pity and agitation. He had thought they were past this.

When Stan refused to get up or even to move his head away from the stench of his own regurgitated stomach contents, Kyle quietly closed the door and gingerly tip-toed to his friend's side. "Stan?" he whispered. The body didn't move. Kyle gently kicked his stomach, and the body grunted, but it didn't move. "You're going to have to wake up. I can't carry you." Carefully, he rolled Stan over from his stomach to his back and then he snapped his fingers rapidly. "Wake up." His mouth was gaping open and his tongue lolled out like a dead worm, and judging by the smell it would not have seemed unusual if there had in fact been dead things in his mouth. "Wake up, fucktard." Like any best friend would have done, Kyle proceeded to smack Stan's face, side to side, over and over again, until he opened his eyes. They were swimming in his head, but at least they were there.  
"Kyle?" he said.  
"Yeah, it's me. Get up."  
"I missed you."  
"Yeah, yeah."

Stan gripped handfuls of Kyle's jacket like he needed it to anchor himself to the ground; his legs wobbled and the head his eyes were swimming in was drowning. He couldn't see straight, and while he managed to get to his feet with a great deal of help, he simply could not stand by himself. From far away he heard Kyle saying things that were unclear to him, and he wondered if he'd forgotten how to speak English. Then he wondered in what language he was thinking if he'd forgotten English. For a moment he was completely mind-fucked and couldn't even move in the face of his utter confusion, but Kyle eventually stepped on his foot and brought him back. "Move it," he ordered.  
Though each step felt as momentous as leaping off of a building, Stan slowly, steadily walked with Kyle. Somehow the door got shouldered open, and he suddenly felt noticeably warmer. The warmth went straight to his head, and he briefly passed out again, his legs still somehow managing to lift and lower each leg in succession. Other than that small grace, for all intents and purposes, he was dead to the world once again.

Kyle struggled under the weight of his best friend; Stan wasn't particularly heavy and he wasn't all that much bigger than him, but handling a practically dead-weight human body was taxing on anyone, let alone an eleven year old. Worse than that was his anxiety about his parents finding out, and with every step he took, Kyle resented Stan even more. He knew how his mother would react if she found them like this, with drool and puke on Stan's face while he remained little more than a doll being carried up the stairs by her son. Luckily, she was still occupied with Ike, and his father only called, "Everything okay, Kyle?"  
"Yeah, Dad," he yelled back. "Everything's great!" Stan's head limply rolled back and knocked against his. His mouth was gaping open again, and from the proximity Kyle could smell the foul stench of booze and vomit. "Everything's great," he repeated, this time low, like a growl.

The stairs were a nightmare. Once or twice Stan seemed to regain a bit of consciousness and he actively helped Kyle traverse them. But then he would go limp again, and would be of no more use climbing a set of stairs than a sack of rocks.  
Kyle was lucky to reach the bathroom with his charge in tow, for not long after he threw Stan into the bathroom and onto the floor, his mother emerged from Ike's room, quietly shutting the door.  
"Kyle, what was all that noise? Is something wrong?" she asked. No doubt she had heard the commotion during the trip up the stairs, and she saw how disheveled her son's clothes had suddenly become.  
"No Mom, everything's fine." Careful to keep the door closed just enough for him to slip inside and not reveal the drunken, corpse-like body on the ground, he said: "Just taking a shower then going to bed; nothing wrong."  
"Did you finish your homework?"  
"Oh, yeah. Well, I did most of it, but I felt like taking a shower so I'll finish it later."  
"Well, don't be up too late. It's a school night, Kyle."  
"I know, so I'll just say good night now! Love you!" Without waiting for a response he shut the door and put his ear to it, listening. He waited until he heard her footsteps down the stairs before he said another word.  
"You're fucking stupid dude, do you know that?" Beneath him, Stan groaned. "I mean; seriously Stan. Do you have any idea how much trouble you could get me in? What if my mom found out?" With great effort, he opened his eyes. They blinked at him unsurely.  
"Are you mad at me?" Kyle contemplated saying that yes, he was, but Stan continued without any confirmation one way or the other. "My parents are arguing again. I hate it dude; I hate it."  
Kyle sighed in defeat. "Come on, let me help you up." Weakly Stan thrust an arm into the air, groping for a helping hand, and Kyle managed to pull him to his feet. As before, he held on for dear life as they somehow finagled their way around the tiny bathroom, and Stan just ended up being plopped onto the toilet. He heard Kyle telling him to take his jacket off, but he couldn't move his arms. He tried. Really, he tried. They wouldn't budge.  
"One day you're going to do this and I'm not going to help you."  
Despair filled Stan to the brim, but it wasn't enough to inspire him to cry; merely to lose absolutely all will to try moving. He remained limp and motionless. "I knew it; you hate me."  
"I don't hate you, I just hate the things you do." Kyle was running the water in the sink, filling it only about half-way before he turned it off again. It was full of freezing cold water, and Kyle drenched a thick washcloth in it. "I'm sick of you taking advantage of me because you make bad choices," he went on. Stan just continued sitting complacently, his chin resting on his own chest. A dull whistling was just audible as air blew through his nostrils, and his hat was askew, half covering one eye. Not that it mattered; both were closed, his face twisted in a grimace. "Wake up, Stan."  
Stan grunted, "Head spinning. Trying to stop." For a brief moment he opened his eyes, but quickly close them again. It was no use. If the world wouldn't slow the fuck down and stop going all crazy, he would just sit there and wait until it went back to normal.  
Since Stan would obstinately not remove his jacket, Kyle did it for him, throwing it unceremoniously to the floor. Stan's head bobbed and swayed limply the whole time, and his arms were dead weights. It was a wonder, Kyle thought, that he'd gotten to his house in such a state at all.  
"I'm just going to clean you up, okay?" The various fluids on his face; barf, drool, maybe tears; had dried to a nasty crust, and if nothing else, the least Kyle could do was wipe it off. "Don't freak out." Gingerly he put the cold cloth to his face, which momentarily provoked a response from the otherwise docile child, but other than jerking his head and glancing distantly at him with eyes glazed with alcohol, he did not protest.

Over all, he was lucky it wasn't worse, Kyle thought. When Stan had uncouthly regurgitated on his front door step and then fallen from it, he had avoided falling in any of the nasty stuff, and only a little bit had found its way to his face. In moments he would be done wiping him clean, and then Kyle might be able to start making a plan for getting his friend home.  
Unfortunately, just as Kyle had considered the blessing and turned back to the sink to rinse his cloth, Stan began to feel something sour gurgling in his stomach and then slowly creep up his throat. He tried to do something; turn his head, spread his legs and attempt to aim into the toilet; anything would have done. But alas, it was all for naught; unable to even lift his head from his chest, a second round of uncontrollable nausea hit him like a truck, and a little burp brought a wave of vomit down the front of his shirt and jeans. Thankfully it was one, good expulsion rather than several, and when he'd finished expelling the last of what his stomach had to offer, he managed to lift his head just enough to let it gracelessly fall back as he gaped helplessly at the ceiling while his head pounded and his queasy stomach burned. He whimpered pathetically above, weakly asking, "Why me?" and other such self-loathing questions, and he whimpered again when Kyle finally reacted to the spectacle.  
"Jesus Christ, dude...really? I mean, is that all you can do at this point? Puke on yourself?" Stan, only partially paying attention, weakly nodded.  
There wasn't nearly as much as had been ejected outside near the doorstep, but Stan was covered in it. There was no salvaging any of his clothes at this point, and likely it was seeping into places best left unmentioned. It could no longer be avoided; Stan would have to, somehow, get in the shower.  
Kyle was ready to murder him at this point, but then Stan somehow found a way to make words come out. They were shrill and whiny and emotional, begging for pity, and Kyle couldn't find it in himself to be angry.  
"I love you," came the first drunken slur.  
"You reek, dude."  
"You're my best friend. I love you, man." Stan somehow found the strength to lift his arms and attempt to reach out to hug his best friend, but unsurprisingly he wasn't even close.  
"You're really gross right now, you know." With Stan incapacitated and mumbling nonsense, Kyle turned the shower faucet on, leaving it cold, and pulled the shower curtain to one side. It was only a shower, not a bath, (thank God; it'd be easier getting him in) so either Stan would have to sit curled up on the shower floor or he would somehow have to find it in him to stand. One way or another, he was going in. The smell was starting to nauseate Kyle.

He silently removed Stan's shoes and socks, letting the drunken confessions roll off of his back like rain, and then, looking away modestly, he managed to pull off his pants. He did his best not to spill anything on the tile while he began piling the clothes on top of each other in the furthest corner. Next came the briefs, (also removed while attempting to ignore as much as possible, and then thrown on top of the pile) and finally, the shirt.  
Stan had evidently not noticed any of this going on at all until Kyle got to his shirt. For some reason, removing the shirt bothered him like nothing else had.  
"Dude, stop it," he told him, agitation evident on his face. "I'm not into that."  
"Shut up, Stan." After everything, Kyle wasn't going to tolerate him being difficult for no reason. He went to remove the shirt again; Stan once again resisted. Suddenly his arms had feeling and strength in them again, and try as Kyle might, he could not get the shirt any higher than his navel.  
"Cut it out!"  
"Stop acting like a petulant child, Stan!"  
"I'm not!" was the shrill, whining reply. "Just knock it off, okay?!"  
Losing patience completely, Kyle told him sharply: "Dude, your dick is already flopping around. What the fuck does your shirt matter?"  
Stan suddenly glanced downward dumbly.  
"Dude, where did my pants go?" He looked at Kyle with such innocent bewilderment that, despite himself, Kyle had to stifle a smile and a laugh. Sure, Stan was still being infuriating, but it was almost humorous. "Kyle, where the fuck are my pants?"  
"Up there." Kyle pointed to the ceiling, and amazingly enough, Stan fell for it. He looked up wondrously for a second, perhaps asking himself how his pants could have gotten up there, and Kyle took the opportunity to snatch and pull his shirt over his head in one fell swoop. The good news was that Kyle could finally get Stan in the shower; the bad news was that Kyle's ungainly method of removing his last piece of clothing resulted in Stan's face getting covered in puke, and he was not out of it enough to not notice. He made a noise of revolt and disgust and he began trying to wipe it off.  
"Eww, why the hell did you do that?"  
"You brought it upon yourself," berated Kyle.

Despite being profoundly agitated with Kyle trying to strip off his shirt, he had absolutely no problem with his friend hoisting him up from the toilet, butt naked, (he didn't so much as wriggle) and haphazardly throwing him into the shower. In fact, he even laid contentedly on the floor of it for a moment, curling up into a ball, until the realization suddenly hit him: the water was freezing cold. He felt like someone was throwing little needles of ice on his face. He was not being showered with water; just liquid ice. For a moment, he vaguely felt the sensation that he was back on Kyle's doorstep, face first in the snow.  
Helplessly he flailed on the shower floor, all at once becoming awake and alert, regaining the use of his limbs. "Jesus Christ, dude! What the hell was that for?" he yelped, and Kyle quickly shushed him.  
"Not so loud! My parents don't know you're here!"  
The cold water seemed to have awoken him from his hapless stupor, and he sat bunched up against the back wall of the shower, as far away from the water as he could, legs pulled to his chest and arms holding onto them desperately. He shivered all over; teeth chattered, toes curled in frozen misery. "That was a pretty cruel way of waking me up, dude."  
"You weren't sleeping. That's the worst part." Not done yet, Kyle threw him the wash cloth he'd used to wipe his face, and he twisted the shower head to spray directly onto the cowering Stan, who cringed and vainly tried to shield himself with his hands. "Wash yourself up. I'll be right back."

Stan held his head delicately. His senses were being overrun in the tiny bathroom, and he was in no state to be suffering from sensory overload. The water was pounding on the shower tiles so loudly, and there were way too many lights in the bathroom than should have been necessary. It went without mentioning that he was so cold he could hardly stand it; his very blood felt frozen beneath his skin.  
Somehow, he found it in himself to stumble to his feet, and twist the hot water faucet until it would turn no more. Unsteadily he balanced himself against the wall, hunched over, head wilted, as he relished the sensation of lukewarm water beating his back. Slowly he twisted the cold faucet, little by little, until the water went from lukewarm to simply warm. His toes tingled and burned as the frozen blood began to recirculate, and gradually he stopped shivering.  
He glanced out of the shower. Kyle was not there.

Drunkenly, moving in slow motion, Stan began to clean himself up as Kyle had requested. With his hat already practically falling off of his head he pulled it off, throwing it carelessly in a sopping wet heap to the bathroom floor, and he raised his head to the shower head, allowing the warm water to caress his face. He didn't bother with the wash cloth; he simply grabbed the soap, lathering it slowly and awkwardly, and then smeared it directly on his body. It was soft and smelled nice, he thought; it didn't make his skin dry after like the stuff at his house.  
He glanced out of the shower. Kyle was still not there.

He ran his fingers through his hair and grimaced; his head still pounded, and touching it brought sharp pangs from his temple all the way to his neck. He was slowly sobering up, but all that meant was that he would soon feel like shit, and normally that meant he went in search for more booze. There would always be some way to get it; whether he swiped it from his parents' reserves or paid a homeless guy to get it for him, there would be some way to get it. But not here.  
Instead, as he stroked his hair, he dully realized it was oily and desperately in need of a good washing. He hadn't been practicing particularly good hygiene as of late.  
He went through the whole process of washing his hair, lathering shampoo, digging his nails into his scalp and rubbing it in intently, and then he washed it away again.  
He was used to using a 2-in-1 brand, but since there were two separate bottles he assumed he was supposed to move onto the next one for conditioner. He didn't bother; it wasn't that important anyway.  
He glanced out of the shower. Kyle was still not there.

With nothing else left to do, he fell against the shower wall, twisting the cold water faucet again until the water was steaming. The hot spray coated the mirror with a fine sheen of condensation and slowly filled the bathroom with soggy mist, and it made his skin flush from the heat. Beads of sweat dripped down his face, but he paid no heed; he closed his eyes and savored the warmth, sleepily twisting the knob more and more until it would no longer turn. He was vaguely under the impression that the water was no longer warm and soothing, but it hurt. It burned him. Scalding. Part of him wanted to hiss and withdraw from it, but instead he took it, stoic and indifferent. Pain was part of life; sometimes it was good to feel pain. Pain was better than absolute nothingness.  
He just wished he could just sleep. It had been a long time since he'd been able to get a long, restful sleep. Pain always seemed to interrupt it.

While Stan steadily drifted off again, supported by the wall and assaulted by the steaming pellets, Kyle finally made his return. He looked frustrated, but whatever was bothering him, he didn't take it out on Stan. "I need to get in there now. I hope you're done," he said shortly. He didn't apologize for his lengthy absence.  
Dumbly, Stan nodded his head, but he was having trouble opening his eyes again. The pain; the burning; it was all nice.  
"Wake up, Stan," said Kyle, not for the last time that night, and he reached in to shake his shoulder. His hand had barely made contact when he yelped and pulled it back; the water was practically boiling, scalding hot! A second of exposure had left his skin angry and red, and it stung bitterly. "Christ, dude! That's hot!" Alarmed, he turned the cold water faucet back all the way, and the shower slowly became lukewarm again. "What the fuck is the matter with you? Didn't that hurt?" He studied his friend's skin, (stopping just above the navel, of course) to find it red and agitated all over. But Stan seemed no worse off than before; he just slowly shook his head and grumbled. "You're fucking crazy sometimes, dude," Kyle muttered.

With the water back to uncomfortably lukewarm, Stan began to come around again. Still leaning on Kyle for support, he stepped out of the shower, and he stumbled to the towel rack, where he pulled one off and awkwardly began drying himself off, by himself. Satisfied that Stan was going to be able to function without him, Kyle turned his attentions to himself. Just outside the shower, he was quickly shedding his clothes and adjusting the water temperature again. As he stripped, he talked.  
"I had to grab my homework from downstairs and say I was going to bed immediately after this. There's no way my parents would let you stay the night on a school night dude, so you'll have to wait a few hours until they go to bed and then sneak out. They held me up talking to me about procrastinating on my homework and I finally got away when I said the shower was still running." Finally stripped nude, Kyle slipped into the shower and closed the curtain.  
Quietly listening to all of this, Stan found support against the bathroom wall, his eyes slowly blinking the confusion away. It was a school night; he'd forgotten. Dully, he realized he'd also forgotten to do his homework. Was it due tomorrow? Maybe it was due the day after. Either way, he didn't want to ask Kyle to see his. Some of what his friend had said earlier had sunken in, and he wasn't really keen on taking further advantage of him.  
"You can wear some of my clothes," came the voice of his friend behind the curtain. "I might have some of your pajamas here from the last time you stayed over too."  
Stan's head slowly turned to see his old clothes in a pile oozing with a distinctly foul smell. What exactly he would do with those clothes when he finally got around to leaving, well, that was yet to be seen.

Kyle wasted little time in stepping out again, (not bothering to wash his hair; that could wait for another night) and grabbing a towel to wrap around his waist. Apathetically, Stan leaned against the wall as he watched Kyle comb his wet, unruly hair out of his face and brush his teeth. Despite the fact that he was clearly rushing through what was probably his typical bathroom routine, he did stop to floss, albeit it at a rate that was far too fast to be thorough.  
"Are you ready, dude? We'll have to make a run for it." Stan's towel was hanging limply from his hand. Taking Kyle's lead, he wrapped it around his waist.  
"What about the clothes?"  
"I'll come back for them."  
Kyle cracked open the door, shiftily peeking from side to side to determine if the coast was clear, and then he waved to Stan. Kyle hustled out the door.  
He hurt all over. His head especially ached to the core. The last thing Stan felt like doing was rushing anywhere.  
Nonetheless, he managed to send the right signals from his brain to his legs to get them to move, still keeping a hand on the wall just in case, and after he'd also checked to ensure that no one was around, he dashed out of the bathroom. He knew Kyle's house just as well as the Broflovskis did, and despite still being mildly intoxicated he quickly found Kyle's room with no trouble. In he ducked, putting his back to the wall as he closed the door behind him as quietly as he could. The click from it locking him into place still seemed extremely loud to him, but Kyle said nothing of it, which was just as good. All of his blood seemed to be rushing to his head, and he desperately wanted to lie down.  
"How are you feeling?" asked Kyle. Stan had never been more thankful that his friend was soft-spoken when unprovoked; when everything else made his head split open, Kyle's voice soothed it.  
"Like shit," he replied.  
"There you go again," was Kyle's response. He was digging in his dresser for something; he had a pair of dark flannel pajama bottoms thrown over his shoulder, but seemed unable to find its mate anywhere. "Are you at least sobering up a little?"  
"To be honest, I feel more sober now than I have the past few days." Stan could still feel that the was drunk; a cold shower wasn't going to fix that. The haziness of alcohol still fogged his mind. But somehow, he felt more clear-headed now than he had since he'd started this most recent binge. He knew he was still sloshed, possibly REALLY sloshed, but it didn't feel that way.  
"You should try to keep it that way," was his reply. In the end, Kyle settled for the pajama bottoms and a white wife beater, (who did they care if Stan matched?) and he threw the two items to Stan in a clump. Without any warning, needless to say Stan didn't catch them I time.  
"Thank you," he mumbled. He was getting cold again.

Both of them dressed. Kyle was gathering a book, a pencil, and a notebook flipped open to a page half-filled with writing, but Stan ignored him; he made it to the bed and plopped down onto it, face first, sighing contentedly. Finally; something soft and comfortable to lay on. If he could just sleep for a few hours on something this soft, he'd be all set.  
As he had been all night, Stan transiently slipped out of consciousness. He had the vague feeling that he was alone for a while, but it didn't really register with him until he heard the door open suddenly. He started, sitting up abruptly in anticipation of being found out and interrogated by a very pissed off Mrs. Broflovski, but it was only Kyle trailing a black trash bag behind him.  
"Bring this with you when you leave," he ordered as he threw the bag into a corner.  
Stan only fell back onto the bed, his arm flung over his face. He sighed.  
"Wake up and scoot over. I need to finish my homework."  
"Go do it on your desk," he mumbled.  
"If my mom comes in here and I'm not in bed, she'll be mad." He paused momentarily, and then added angrily: "And it's my bed! Move."  
Stan grumbled, but re-situated himself to give Kyle most of the bottom half of the bed. Curled up in the fetal position, face still hiding in the pillow, he sighed again.  
"Thanks."

Dressed fully in pajamas bearing the likeness of a certain pair of cartoon heroes, Kyle sat Indian style at the end of the bed, the text book open to his left with the notebook spread across his legs. He suckled thoughtfully on the end of the pencil.  
"Did you do your essay?" Kyle asked.  
"Mhmm, which one was that again?"  
"The one about the Renaissance period."  
Stan didn't even remember learning about the Renaissance in class any time in the past few days, let alone being assigned an essay on it. But he said, "I've got it like half done."  
"I'm just trying to make a good ending paragraph. Who did you do yours on?"  
Stan considered for a moment. The only thing he could remember right then was that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had been named after famous artists during the Renaissance. So he pulled one out of his ass.  
"Raphael," he said.  
"Oh, that's cool. I'm doing Solomon Molcho."  
Who Solomon Molcho was Stan had no idea, but he mumbled some sort of positive acknowledgment, and then groped around for a blanket. "I'm cold," he said.  
"Here." From the floor, Kyle grabbed a thick comfortable and threw it on top of Stan. With no further complaints to make and no further conversation to offer, Stan snuggled into the pillow and promptly fell asleep. He felt warm, safe, and comfortable, but not entirely peaceful. There was still pain.

* * *

"Wake up, Stan."  
Stan was beginning to grow tired of that statement. Sluggishly he rolled from one side or the other to try and ignore the nagging voice, but it was no use. The voice was now poking him in the back.  
"Come on dude, wake up."  
He opened his eyes. It was still dark, the middle of the night, with the blue light from the moon just barely illuminating the bedroom. "What?"  
"You've got to go. My parents should be asleep by now."  
Stan was way too comfortable to get up and start moving around, and furthermore, he felt way too sober. The harsh reality of a hangover, among other things, would not fall far behind. He snuggled back beneath the blanket and became aware that he was very warm. Kyle was lying next to him. The bed was a twin size, just barely big enough for two eleven year old boys, so while they had some space they were still almost intimately close.  
"You can't stay here Stan; my mom will find out and then I'll get in trouble. And what about your parents? I'm sure they're worried about you."  
"Yeah, I'm sure they are. And I hope they're worried sick," he said with as much bitterness as he could muster given how groggy he was.  
"Your parents love you Stan; I know you know that."  
"Yeah, well, I don't love them."  
"You're being stupid again."  
"And you're being fucking annoying again, dude. Why do you always have to lecture me?"  
"I told you, you would have to leave." Kyle was sitting up in the bed, and now he reached over, turning on a bed side light that, after a few hours of restless sleep, burned Stan's eyes more than the sun might have. He tried to pull the cover over his eyes again, and Kyle just ripped it off of him. Stan stubbornly would not move.  
"Do I have to drag you out of this goddamn bed Stan?"  
"Yeah, because I'm not moving. Good luck with that."  
The truth was, Kyle was tired of dealing with Stan and his immature bullshit. Having completed his essay, he had managed to squeeze his way back into bed, and he managed to take possession of a pillow. Then, setting his alarm for 1 in the morning, a time when his parents were all but absolutely certain to be in bed, he had settled down beside his snoozing friend. It had taken some time for his mind to stop running in circles, (how he envied Stan's ability to fall asleep on a whim!) but he had eventually passed out. When the alarm had first gone off, Kyle's first instinct was to shut it off and not worry about it. So what if Stan stayed the night; he could just wake up a little early and go back home to change, or hell; he could borrow some clothes. He and Stan were more or less the same size.  
The problem with this was that when Kyle was awoken by the alarm, he had just enough cognizance to realize that Stan was cuddling him, his body pressed up close to his back and his arm wrapped around him. In one moment he'd become extremely aware of the warmth of his breath on his neck, and the tightness with which the arm held him. He and Stan had shared a bed before; they were best friends, sleeping in close proximity was just something you ended up doing now and then; but never like that. This was too much for him to handle.

"Dude, you're leaving. End of story," he said firmly. Stan took a moment to reply, but it was clear to him that Kyle meant business. He wanted him gone. This whole escapade was over.  
"Fine. You know what? Fine." Stan pulled himself up and threw his legs off of the bed, waiting only a moment before standing. Over the past few hours he seemed to have dried up significantly; he was no longer swaying and stumbling over himself, and he no longer needed something to support him. On top of that, he seemed to have regained some of his attitude. Eyes once docile from something like a alcohol-induced hypnotic state were now sharp, aware, and full of hate. "I don't even want to stay here anyway. I don't know what made me come to you to begin with."  
Kyle sighed. Here they went again.  
"But I don't really want to go home either. Maybe I'll just go somewhere I belong; maybe I'll crawl around in the gutters until I freeze to death."  
"Don't talk like that, Stan."  
"Talk like what? Like I want to die? Does that wreck your stupid little fairy tale world?" Stan was searching for his jacket before he realized that it had probably been rounded up with all of his other clothes, all of which were, he guessed, bunched up in that black trash bag. He remembered seeing Kyle carrying it a while ago; where did he put it?  
"You don't want to die, Stan. I know you don't. If you did you wouldn't keep this up."  
"Keep what up? Suffering through another day of torment at the hands of people I love?" Beside the trash bag were a pair of winter boots; evidently, Kyle had at least had the foresight not to toss these items in with all the rest. Moodily he shuffled to grab them, and then he slid down the bedroom wall nearest to the door to put them on.  
"The very fact that you drink means you want to live. Don't you always tell me you need it to feel like other people? That you need it to feel happy? Obviously that means you want to live." Kyle didn't necessarily agree with this as a valid option, but it was better than seeing his friend continue sinking into depression. Constantly being under the influence of some sort of alcohol was better than watching him descend into total insanity.  
"Shut up. You don't know anything."  
"I only know what you tell me."  
Stan managed to get a foot into a boot, and then he began tightly tying up the laces; so tight the boots squeezed his feet and hurt. The pair was actually a bit small for him and he'd grown out of them, but he kept using them, just the same. It was another addition of pain to add to the equation, and pain was good. Pain meant he was alive.  
"Besides, you're starting to sound like those freaky goth kids again. I told you to stop hanging out with them. They're a bad influence on you."  
"Well, for your information, I'm not hanging out with them. But if I was, I wouldn't stop doing it just because you told me to. Because the great Kyle tells me what's right and wrong, right? Because you just think you know everything, don't you?" One boot done, he moved onto the other one. "And who are you to tell me who I can't hang out with? Let's go down the list, shall we?" Either the boot was smaller than the other or this foot was bigger than the other, because he was having significantly more trouble. "There's Cartman, who's a fucking neo-nazi wannabe asshole who doesn't care about any of us. There's Kenny, who's fucking miserable himself and puts all his time and energy into sex to forget about it." The boot slipped on. Briefly, for a moment, he stopped glaring at the boots to look at Kyle. He was sitting on the edge of the bed with a look Stan couldn't quite place. He continued: "And then there's you, Kyle. Fucking moral-driven..." His fierce glare returned to the boot as he began lacing it. "Fucking indecisive, fucking weak little kid afraid of his own mother..." He pulled as tightly as he could. His foot cried in protest, but he ignored it, the same as he ignored Kyle. "Fucking smart-ass, and no." Pull. "Fucking." Twist. "Clue." Tie. "How the world works."

Almost the instant he ended that sentence, he felt something solid collide with his face. Caught thoroughly off guard, he might have fallen to the ground had he not been so near to the wall. As it stood, he lay against the wall in a state of shock and confusion. The side of his mouth hurt, and he thought he tasted blood. Just when he had begun to recover from the last hit, there came another one, and this time he had the presence of mind to realize it was Kyle punching him.  
"Dude, what are you hitting me for?!"  
"Because you obviously need to be hit." He threw another punch at him, and this time, Stan retaliated with a punch of his own. Neither of them hit their marks, and with a guttural cry he leaped on Kyle, wrestling him to the ground while they both threw wild, blind punches at each other, rolling and trading for some sort of position of dominance in a fight that neither of them would win.

The brawl lasted for only a few short minutes, and then both of them rolled away in a mutual draw, panting and glaring at each other. While Stan couldn't see it, he had clearly come off worst; he suffered what would almost certainly become a black eye, among other bruises certain to form, and a rather severe split lip, which slowly leaked blood and hurt every time he moved his mouth. The right side of his jaw particularly hurt too, and he spent a good minute checking his teeth to ensure that not only were they all still accounted for, but that he would not be losing them any time soon. He didn't know which ones were baby teeth and which ones had already grown in, so he took no chances and checked them all. As far as he could tell, they were all still there, and none of them were loose, though his tongue was imbued with the copper taste of blood.  
Kyle only had a few bruises to speak of, as well as some scraped knuckles that had at some point come in contact with Stan's teeth, and a rather impressive bloody nose, which he was currently pinching with some of the Kleenex that his mother insisted be kept by his bed at all times. For once, being a hypochondriac had at least come somewhat in handy.  
Not having learned his lesson, Stan spit at him, "And that's another thing! You have no fucking control over your temper! I can't believe you haven't gotten expelled from school for fighting yet!"  
"Oh, shut up Stan! Are you even listening to yourself? You're dissing the one guy in this stupid town that actually gives a shit about you!" Pinching his nose the entire time, Kyle's rebuttal almost sounded funny; like he was trying to talk in a cute voice to tone the mood tone. Stan, however, was nowhere close to laughing.  
"Yeah, right," he snorted, and he licked up the blood trailing down his mouth. Some friend.  
"Don't give me that line of bullshit. You know it's true. Why else do you get so smashed to the point you're like a helpless baby, and then come seeking me for help?"  
"Well, I never said I needed your help anyway!"  
"And why else do you think that even though you take advantage of me again and again, even though I know I might get in trouble for it, I keep helping you? I keep covering your stupid ass so that you don't get in trouble? I keep lying for you when people ask me if I think you're an alcoholic when you're _eleven fucking years old?"  
_"SHUT THE FUCK UP, KYLE!"

As if reading each others minds they both ceased talking immediately and listened. Despite everything they had taken care to be fairly quiet; even their brief fight had been mostly grunts and dull thumps when a fist made a connection, but in his outrage a scream had torn itself from Stan's throat, and they were both waiting for the inevitable. Kyle's mother would surely be here any minute, ready to get to the bottom of it all.  
But nothing happened. Minutes passed. Kyle replaced his tissue and got another one. Stan took some himself, wiping off his bloody lip and wondering if he needed stitches. And nothing happened.  
"Is she a deep sleeper or what?" Stan said, this time keeping his voice very low.  
"I don't know, dude. But if she really didn't hear that, that was a stroke of good luck if I ever saw one."

Kyle was collecting the bloody Kleenex in a little waste paper basket. His nose had stopped bleeding, although a fairly prominent bruise was beginning to come in on his cheek. There was another look on his face that Stan could not describe; something between anger and sadness, but not quite either of them at once.  
"I'm sorry, Kyle." Still tasting blood on his lips, his head beginning to pound again both from taking a good old fashioned ass kicking as well as being mildly hung over, Stan actually felt awful. He was sorry for the things he'd said about Kyle, sorry for fighting and hurting him, sorry for causing him all this trouble in the first place. Sorry that once again, all he was good for was pain.  
But all Kyle said was, "Sure," and he returned to the bed. He sat on the edge, back hunched and face hidden in his hands. He sighed, but he didn't seem capable of speaking yet. Maybe he was trying to figure out what to say. Maybe he had already said everything he could.  
"I'm going to leave." Stan got to his feet. If at all possible, he wanted to end this as soon as possible. All he had to do was walk out the door. Nonetheless, there was one small issue that, despite his pride, he felt compelled to ask for a favor. "It's cold out. Can I borrow a jacket?" In the dead of night in Colorado, it was easily hovering around 0 degrees Fahrenheit, if not less with wind chill. The snow had been coming down thickly and frequently, and going in it with nothing but a pair of boots with no socks and pajama bottoms would be hard enough; he didn't want to think about how cold he would be going around in a tank top.  
"So all of a sudden you care if you freeze to death?"  
Stan hesitated before replying. His first instinct was to lash out, but his rage had abated. He had no desire to fight with Kyle anymore. "I'm sorry about that too. I don't need to say things like that."  
"Then why do you say them dude?" Kyle threw his hands outward, begging, pleading for an answer. He seemed utterly helpless. "What am I supposed to say when you say things like how you wish you were dead, or...or how you hate your parents and you wish they weren't around anymore? What am I supposed to say, Stan?"  
"Just...I don't know." Pacing back and forth, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut tightly, he had no answers. "I just really don't know."  
"What do you want me to do?" he insisted. "Just tell me and I'll do it, okay? Do you WANT me to tell people I think you need help? Maybe if you talk to someone you'll get better. The only reason they haven't taken you away is because I tell them not to, Stan!"  
"Don't make yourself out to be some sort of saint."  
"And don't you make yourself to be some sort of martyr! I don't understand why you still won't tell me what the fuck is wrong with you! Aren't I your friend? Haven't I always been your friend?"  
"Kyle, this has nothing to do with you being my friend, okay?" Eyes cast down, he put his hands against the bedroom wall, arms fully extended, as though trying to push it out of his way. He just wanted to steady himself; try and regain some of the coolness he usually had. There were too many emotions bubbling up right now, and it scared him. Emotions hurt, but they were nothing like pain. And he just felt so, so tired. "None of this is because of you."  
"Well, it will have something to fucking do with me if I find out you've fucking killed yourself and I wonder what I could have done different to prevent it." As much as it sounded like concern and care and distress, Kyle's words were bitterly sharp and spiteful; almost hateful. On one hand he desperately wanted to save his best friend, and on the other he had never resented him more. It was a despairing mixture of both.  
"I'm not going to kill myself." Stan said it as a flat, outright statement; maybe to himself as much as Kyle. "Suicide is stupid. I'm not looking for death."  
"Then what ARE you looking for?" From behind him Stan heard a loud squeak from springs as Kyle left the bed. He could hear soft footsteps coming towards him. "You know I'll help you if you want me to."  
"But that's not what I want. I don't want you to help me."  
"Then what?" Kyle had reached him. Only a foot or two away, not daring to touch him in fear of provoking another outburst, Kyle stood behind him, arms crossed, staring at his back. "What do I need to do to make you happy again?"  
_  
When you get what you want, bu__t not what you need.__  
__When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep.__  
__Stuck in reverse..._

"Kyle..." he swallowed the words down. He didn't have to say them.  
"What?"  
He didn't have to say them. "I don't want you to be my friend anymore." He didn't have to say it.  
"What?" Stan could say a lot of things and none of them would shock Kyle. He could say he wanted to die, he could say he hated his parents; hell, he could say he hated his friends. But wanting to stop their friendship entirely? "Why?"  
"I'm tired of hurting you. So I want it to stop." There was more. There was so much more. If he didn't choose the words as best he could, he would end up saying feelings. Raw, unfiltered feelings. Scarier than pain.  
"That hurts me most of all, you know." He couldn't look at Kyle. He couldn't look at Kyle. His allowed his head to twist just enough to catch him out of the corner of his eye; arms still crossed as if in anger, rather, it looked like he was holding himself. "We've been friends since... I don't even remember. What did I do to make you hate me?"  
Don't look at Kyle. Don't look at him. Don't look at him.  
Stan pushed himself away from the wall and turned to look at him. Their eyes caught. "I don't hate you."  
"You keep saying that; just like you keep saying a lot of things that are all bullshit. I don't even think you know what's wrong with you anymore."  
Curling his fingers into quivering fists, teeth clenched just as tightly, he said, "You wouldn't understand."  
"Weak, dude; really weak. Is that all you're going to hide behind? Oh, woe is me; no one understands?"  
It was building up to a treacherous point. It was becoming almost impossible to hold back. His face was flushed with emotion and burning with heat; even licking his split lip didn't override the raw emotion that was slowly bubbling to the surface now.  
"You know, you're right. I don't understand." Maintaining eye contact was torture, but he couldn't look away. It seemed to be the only thing keeping him from breaking down completely; seeing the hate in his eyes.  
"I don't understand how you can do this to yourself. I don't understand what made you this way. And I don't understand what you want from me." He was slowly getting angrier and his words were slowly gaining in intensity. Every syllable was a little harsher; every word was a little louder, and every bit of it was fueling the fire. Everything about Stan burned; his cheeks from embarrassment, his eyes from resisting the need to cry, his blood from a dull rage, and his heart from something else entirely.  
"I don't know anything about you anymore." His words were growing desperate now. Pleading for answers. His voice seemed to be ringing in his ears. "I don't know what I need to do." Louder. More desperate. More tortured, agonized confessions. He was very close to yelling now; fuck his mother. Fuck his father. Fuck everyone else in the whole goddamn town. "I don't know what you want me to do!" Grabbing his friend's shoulders and shaking him violently, he finally closed his eyes, breaking contact as he finally lost it, screaming: "I don't know how to fix you, Stan!"  
Stan's reply came in the form of a quiet cry, something like a scream that had lost all of its volume; something coming from the depths of somewhere very far inside of him, where the words were being shouted over and over, but by the time they passed his lips, they could only just whisper it. "You're the reason I'm broken."

_And the tears come streaming down your face,  
When you lose something you can't replace.  
When you love someone, but it goes to waste,  
Could it be worse? _

All at once, like a dam had burst, tears filled and then overflowed from his eyes, two streams of fat tears running down each cheek in pure, liquid sadness. "How many times have I said it? How many ways do I have to say it?" he croaked, emotion breaking his voice to pieces.  
Rather than reply, Kyle let go of his friend's shoulders. His breathing was shallow; his eyes were wide. Warm tears hovered just below the breaking point in them.  
"You know what I mean." His voice was like shattered glass; fine and broken and beautiful. "You've heard me say it before. You've always brushed it off. You've always thought I was kidding or too wasted to know what I was talking about. And now you want to know why?" He wiped his face off on his sleeve, but it did little good; the dam continued to spill, the pain continued seeping out. "Well, now you know. I mean it. I mean it with all my heart. I lo..." Swallowing the glass as it cut his throat, cutting him up inside and bleeding everywhere, he got out: "I love you."_  
_

_And high up above or down below,  
When you're too in love to let it go.  
But if you never try, you'll never know  
Just what you're worth._

"Like I said," Kyle replied quietly, "I don't know how to fix you."

It was possibly the worst thing he could have said. Croaking out a shaky "Oh God," Stan turned away from him, depending on the wall for the support he so desperately needed when it seemed clear that Kyle would give him none of it; none of it at all. Weakly he pounded it with his fist, shaking his head, tears coming not in neat little streams but in clumpy blobs interrupted by sobs and hiccups. The pain was so blunt and raw he couldn't stand it, and yet he could do nothing but wallow in it. There was no escaping this pain; the ultimate pain. The pain of knowing the truth. Kyle would never love him. And while some pain was a sweet reminder that you were still alive and well, this pain was crushing darkness. A black hole may as well have formed where his heart used to be.  
And the worst part of it was that this was all a bitter, sober reality. There was no alcohol to play the scapegoat. Blame could not be passed to someone else. Stan had utterly exposed himself, and he was liable to paying the consequences. And God fucking damn it, if he couldn't stop crying. Even now the tears would not stop; they had been built up for a long, long time, and they would not be suppressed now. He could spare no more words; only sobs, wrenched from the depths of a soul so bitterly tortured with love. _  
_

_Tears stream down your face  
When you lose something you cannot replace.  
Tears stream down your face  
And I... _

From behind him, he felt Kyle put a hand on his shoulder, and he jerked away. He didn't want pity; it was bad enough to have so utterly thrown himself to the ground, only to be stepped on. Pity was not what he needed.  
"I need you to look at me," Kyle told him.  
"Just leave me alone," he whimpered. It was bad enough that Kyle rejected him; he didn't need Kyle giving him more speeches and excuses and whatever the fuck else he thought might help.  
"Stan, I need you to man the fuck up and look at me," he said again, this time more directly. Stan only hesitated a second before a hand gripped his shoulder, and he heard the words spoken this time practically in a growl. "Look at me!"  
Making a futile attempt to wipe his face clean of tears, he spun around to face his friend one more time. He would not be able to stand up to much more of this; he was already so utterly broken as it was, the slightest push would simply shatter him beyond all repair. Nonetheless, he managed to make eye contact. He couldn't tell what he saw; whether it might be loathing or resentment or whatever else. The eyes of his best friend were unreadable in a way he had never known before.  
"I need you to tell me that again," Kyle said calmly.  
Stan sniffed loudly, attempting to draw in the tears and snot leaking out so he could speak. "Why? You heard me the first time. I said it."  
"You say a lot of things, Stan. You say a lot of really fucked up things. Some of them you don't mean. Half the time I don't even know what you're trying to say anymore." He closed his eyes. Even now, his face reflected calmness. "So say it again if you mean it. And tell me you mean it."  
"I swear it."

_Tears stream down your face  
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes  
Tears stream down your face  
And I..._

"I swear to God, Kyle. I love you." Saying it squeezed more tears from his drowning eyes, but he said it clearly. Glass cracked, but not shattered, he delivered the words to him as though they were a fragile present, one he could only hope would be accepted.  
There was no immediate reaction. Kyle remained motionless and seemingly unresponsive, and his eyes remained closed. Then slowly, his mouth slightly curled into a little smile. When his eyes opened they were warm and tender, and finally he too allowed the tears to fall. "Good," he said.  
He closed the distance. For an awkward moment he simply stood in front of him, mere inches away, then slowly, carefully, Kyle wrapped his arms around a petrified Stan, leaning his face against his chest. He heard his heart beat, fast and drumlike, but he could hear no breathing. All of the breath seemed to have been sucked from him, like he'd been punched in the gut and hadn't quite recovered yet. At first, he could not return the embrace. "You're my best friend," said Kyle softly. "It hurts me to see you cry like that."  
Arms shaking, Stan managed to take him in his arms, pulling him as closely to his body as physics would allow them to go, and he buried his head into the nook between his neck and shoulder. Still the tears fell, softly onto Kyle's neck like raindrops."I'm so sorry for everything," he muttered.  
"I know." Their tranquil embrace, unburdened, continued for several long minutes, only to be broken by a sharp intake of breath in between quiet sobs until even those died down. There was only the steady, delicate breathing of two boys; two best friends holding each other, immersed in the rhythm of their heartbeats.

At last, they parted. Eyes puffy and red, (and in Stan's case, one slowly turning black) they were awkwardly uncertain where to proceed. And, a little after the fact, Stan had realized that the words Kyle had pressured him so hard to admit had yet to be spoken from his own mouth.  
"Do you love me?" Stan asked, point blank. There was no reason to tip-toe around it. They had just held each other and cried; there was nothing more to be kept.  
"I would be lying if I said I loved you as strongly as it's obvious you love me." Pure honesty. Zero ill-intention. A boy desperate to make a point without being misunderstood. "Maybe I don't love you romantically," he conceded. "But I do love you."  
"But only like a friend?"  
"Closer, like a brother." Kyle took Stan's hand in his. He was still smiling so serenely that it was hard for Stan to be too upset about the fact that Kyle didn't love him the same way; it was better to be compared to a brother than throw out and despised for loving him in the first place. "And I'll treasure the fact that you love me more deeply than that. Who knows; maybe I'll come to that realization too someday. All I know is that it makes me so happy that you don't hate me."  
"Exactly the same." As long as you don't hate me; that's all Stan needed to be happy. "I feel exactly the same."

There was something more. Stan knew it was risky; being brother material didn't exactly open up a lot of gateways when it came to this sort of stuff. He didn't want to scare him away. But he craved something, so powerfully hungered for it that he was willing to take one last chance for it.  
He raised a hand to Kyle's face. He said, "Your lip is bleeding again," and Stan licked it away. Kyle let a finger trail down the side of his mouth, and Stan winced. It hurt more than he realized.  
"You probably shouldn't do anything to agitate it." Kyle was giving him a subtle suggestion, he realized. No kissing. That desire would not be realize, at least not at this point in time. But instead, he caught Kyle's hand before he took it away, and he kissed his scraped knuckles with all the tenderness and love that he longed to lavish on his lips. When he finished, he held the hand to his cheek.  
"I'm sorry I hurt you," he whispered.  
Kyle looked trapped by indecision, in point of fact maybe even a bit troubled, but then he finally shrugged his shoulders and said, "Screw it," and without giving Stan a clue, he leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth, the side furthest from his wounded lip. It was over before he knew it. Stan couldn't contain himself; he nearly started giggling.  
"You just kissed me, dude."  
"Yeah, I know."  
"Why?"  
"Because I could, okay?"  
"Okay." His lips were breaking out in an infectious smile; Kyle couldn't help but returning it.  
"If you promise to call your parents in the morning and tell them where you've been and that you're sorry, you can stay the night."  
The smile grew wider. "You mean it?"  
"Yeah."  
Stan squeezed his hand. "I'll do it." A night spent with the best friend he loved so much, who knew and accepted that love for what it was; he would get the most restful sleep he'd had in months. The last thing he wanted to do now was solemnly march back into his house and explain to his parents where he'd been. He was too happy right now.  
For the first time, in a long time, he was happy.  
Nothing would ruin that.

As before, they settled side by side into the twin-size bed. Kyle flicked off the bed-side light, and put his head down on the pillow, initially with his back to Stan. But before long, Stan was making a request.  
"Kyle, would it be okay, if I...um..."  
He didn't want to cuddle with Stan; that much was a fact. But to compromise, he rolled over to face him, and laced his fingers in his. "Better?" Holding hands, he was okay with. In fact, it felt kind of nice. Secure; safe.  
"Yeah." Stan sighed in contentment. Already, his eyes were closed. "Much better."  
Kyle silently watched him through half-lidded eyes. Instead of falling asleep immediately as he usually did, Stan continued to open his eyes every few minutes, perhaps checking to ensure that Kyle was real, and he was still there, and this sober reality was, in fact, a reality. Kyle just gently smiled at him every time, and gradually, the checks became less and less. There were no words between them as Stan drifted off, except a murmured, "Love you..." not long before he descended into snores.  
After a long while of staring, thinking, and contemplating how he should best handle things, Kyle's eyes grew heavy. His mind through going around in circles, he let them close with a tired finality. There was only one thing to do, obviously.  
"I'll help you, Stan." Stan made no reply, and this time, Kyle did not demand that he wake up. He didn't have to; this promise, Kyle was making to himself. "I will help you." Sleep swept him off his feet at last, and he wearily let it take him.

On a soft bed lying amidst the remnants of shattered glass, they slept.

_Lights will guide you home_  
_And ignite your bones_  
_And I will try to fix you._


End file.
